


Where will we stand when all the lights go out?

by crabmoss



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Comic)
Genre: Amnesia, Explicit Language, Guns, Memory Loss, mentions of guns, they cuss a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:40:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23916199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crabmoss/pseuds/crabmoss
Summary: After the freeing of the city, Val Velocity is left with little to nothing. When a pair of strange killjoys take an interest in him, he discovers something about himself he never would have believed.
Relationships: Vinyl/Val Velocity
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Where will we stand when all the lights go out?

**Author's Note:**

> This is inspired by something @luckycharmdust on tumblr said on a post as well as a convo with ruin! Thanks for the inspiration!

“Fuck me.” Said Val. He was standing all alone in a crowd of people finding and reuniting with their loved ones, but he didn’t have anyone. Only Vinyl, who he loved, and wished he could talk to, but respected how he was. “Fuck me!” He said louder, anger on his lips. He stormed his way out of the crowd and took out his gun. He could… no. He was just going to shoot towards the sky instead.

A hand touched down on his shoulder that felt like Vinyl’s, so he didn’t move it or look back. He just kept shooting and shooting at the sky until he couldn’t bare to pull the trigger anymore and stomped his gun into the sand. He picked it up and dusted it off almost immediately after, that was his most prized possession after all.

The hand squeezed his shoulder once and there was a voice to go with it. Wait a minute, this wasn’t Vinyl. “Ya done now?” They asked impatiently.

Val swung around to face them. “Why do you care? I don’t even know you!” Val was angry, he had no family and he had no one that wanted him besides one person. He knew he was a bit of an asshole, but he wasn’t about to change his whole demeanor now.

The blond killjoy, at least he assumed this was a killjoy, looked taken aback at that. “You don’t?”

“No!” Val shouted once more and shoved their hand from his shoulder. They were gonna hurt him weren’t they? He didn’t want this person up in his business, he needed some alone time. And maybe a good moving target, if he could find one. “I don’t know what you want from me, but I don’t care. Leave me the fuck alone.”

Before the blond killjoy could get another word in, a much bigger and stronger looking killjoy walked up behind them. Oh thank god, someone to put this killjoy in his place. Instead of dealing with the killjoy he wanted them to deal with, they came even further and stood in front of Val. Fuck this.

He held his yellow ray gun to their chest. “Don’t try it.”

The taller killjoy shook his head and laughed, then reached out and picked up Val by the torso. He kicked and thrashed in their arms, but they had a good grip, so he wasn’t going anywhere soon.

“Let go of me!” He was screaming at a new killjoy within a minute of the last one. “I’m Val Velocity! You can’t do this to me!”

The tall killjoy laughed again, though it was more of a sad chuckle. “This is for your own good, Val.” The word Val came out of their mouth like a curse, like it wasn’t meant to be said. They carried him over to a set of rocks and placed him down on the ground. He tried to get up and run, he could get rid of these people forever if he ran, but the blond one tied him up and pushed him back on the ground. Dammit.

The blond one and the tall one sat down in front of him and stared at him for a minute before staring at each other. What the fuck was going on? Were they talking telepathically or some shit? After a minute both turned back, and it was the blond one’s turn to talk again.

“Val, tell us what you remember.” They said.

Val scoffed. “What I remember?” What kind of question was that? Seriously, who cared what he could remember of his life. Yeah, there wasn’t a lot of it because of some shit he didn’t wanna talk about, but he remembered his life. “I’m not telling you, you’re just some old washed up killjoy who thinks they’re important because you were part of the original noise of the desert. Fuck you.” He spat.

The tall one placed a mask on the ground in front of him. It wasn’t just any mask, it was Party Poison’s mask. “Do you remember this?”

Val rolled his eyes. “Of course I do, everyone does. What, is this because I stole it from The Girl?”

“You did what?” The tall one asked, their face showing seven different emotions at once, most of those being shock and confusion.

“Nevermind!” Val whined. “What do you want from me? I don’t like being tied up, especially by the likes of you.” Seriously, you don’t just tie someone up and then ask meaningless questions like this, it was rude and uncalled for.

The blond one sighed and shook his head. “Can you at least tell us where Vinyl is?”

That wasn’t at all related to what Val asked, nor did it answer why he was tied up, but maybe this could help him get out of this. “If I tell you, will you let me go?”

It was the tall one who sighed this time. These two really seemed to do a lot of sighing. “Yeah, fine.”

Score! “He’s up by the tallest rock, right by where you found me. Don’t scare ‘im though, I don’t want ya getting hurt.” Val smirked.

The blond one and the tall one looked at each other again before looking back at Val in unison. Now that was what he called creepy.

“That’s it,” the tall one picked up Val, still tied up, off the ground, and started walking towards where he had said Vinyl was. “You’ve lost your privileges.”

“Hey!” Val shrieked. “You said you’d let me go!” This wasn’t fair, they said they’d do something so they should do it. Otherwise, he’s not going to trust them anymore. Not like he really had a choice.

“Yeah, well you were a little shit.” The blond one smiled at him from below the tall one’s shoulder and tapped the bright red ray gun in his holster.

“If you’re gonna keep me, it wouldn’t hurt to know your names.” Val resigned to his position on the tall killjoy’s shoulders. At least they weren’t dragging him in the sand or anything.

“You can call me Venus.” Said the tall one.

“And you can call me Viper.” Said the blonde one.

Venus and Viper seemed to have an obsession with Val, because the more he looked at Viper the more he recognized his face from the nest. He would admit to never having seen Venus before, but Viper he’d seen. It was helpful to put a name to the face. Well shit, Viper was right about Val having known them before, but he wasn’t going to tell them.

Venus readjusted Val on their shoulders so he could see Viper much better and stuck out his tongue at them. He knew it was childish, but he was upset and he didn’t wanna be here and this was all he felt he could do. He was powerless otherwise and he didn’t like feeling powerless.

The trek up the rocks to find Vinyl wasn’t really much of a trek, and more of a climb that Venus was having trouble with because they were carrying Val. Maybe if they put him down, they’d actually be able to get up there easier. Viper was eyeing Val most of the time with a weird look of… recognition. Which was very weird because he’d never actually spoken to Viper before today.

At the top of the rock structure Vinyl was sitting on the edge, just like he’d done before at the nest. His feet were swinging and his hair was flowing in the breeze. It would’ve been a really nice thought, but Val knew him better than that and knew he wasn’t just up here to enjoy himself. He was probably processing everything that just happened in the City.

Instead of saying his name, Viper kicked a rock to get Vinyl’s attention as Venus set Val down and loosened what was around his arms, so he could sit comfortably.

“Vinyl!” Val exclaimed. “Please untie me, these people are fucking insane.” Vinyl would surely help him, they did stuff like that for each other.

Venus side-eyed him as he went to give Vinyl a hug, followed by Viper. The people who kidnapped him were giving Vinyl a hug. Vinyl, his love, was giving his kidnappers a hug back. What the fuck kind of alternate universe did he just arrive in.

Viper slicked back Vinyl’s hair and looked him up and down. Before he could get a word in, Val was already shouting at him again.

“Get your hands off him!” Val struggled further in his restraint and got them fully off his arms, but he couldn’t get his gun from the holster, so he’d have to be intimidating on his own. That was going to be hard, since Venus and Viper were way scarier than him.

Viper just shook his head at Val and looked to Vinyl again. “He doesn’t know,” Viper was speaking quietly, but Val could still hear him. What didn’t he know? “But you can drop the act now. We’ve missed you.”

Vinyl nodded and took off his boots, which lowered his size a good six inches. Was he really that short, shorter than Val? He didn’t know what was going on here, but he didn’t like it. “Hey, what the fuck! Vinyl!?”

Vinyl smiled at Val before he went over and ruffled his hair. It was a nice feeling, but this was such a weird situation for it to be happening in.

“Am I allowed to slap him?” Venus asked. No! Val did not want Venus slapping him, they looked like they had muscles on top of their muscles and that was not something he wanted to experience.

“No!” Val pleaded.

Viper shrugged. “Fuckin’ go for it, J.”

J? Val didn’t have time to comprehend Venus’ nickname before their hand met his face. It wasn’t that hard, it wasn’t going to knock Val out or anything, but it still hurt.

“Hey!” Val was yelling a lot, but without his gun his best idea was to annoy these people until they would untie him and let him go so he could finally properly shoot someone.

Vinyl, Venus, and Viper all sat in a circle around Val. They sat without saying anything to him for quite a few minutes until Viper finally broke the silence. This was like some kind of psychological toruture, he swore.

“Val, you’re a bit of a fucking asshole—”

Val cut him off. “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard this before, cut to the chase.”

Viper sighed again. “But, we think you’re not acting like yourself.”

“What the fuck do you mean? I’m always like this, it’s who I am.” He tried to say it with confidence. He felt no shame in what he’d done, he’d apologized, but he couldn’t change that easily. It didn’t work like that for him. Dead was dead, and people were people.

“We know Val Velocity is always like this, but…” Venus nudged Vinyl.

“Hun, were you always Val Velocity?” Vinyl asked.

Val didn’t even process the question, since he was practically short circuiting from hearing Vinyl speak. He… he didn’t do that, it wasn’t something he did. His voice was so beautiful, grainy and higher pitched and not at all what he expected, but he liked it. “Huh?”

Viper turned Val to look at him. “Have you always been Val?” His tone dripped of venom… Venom.

“Of course not, I had a name before this just like the rest of you.” Val spat.

Venus clapped in his face. “You dumbass, you aren’t Val, and you’ve never been Val. This part of you was created by Better Living, personality and all.”

“I— what?” There was no way he was a manufactured Killjoy. He was part of the noise of the desert through and through! 

“You’re an original ‘joy, Val.” Viper told him.

Val liked that even though they were convinced he wasn’t who he said he was, they were still calling him Val. “Well, who do you insist I am, if not myself?” He asked them with an unbelieving undertone in his voice.

Vinyl scooted closer and pushed back part of his red hair, the color he’d stolen from Party Poison. “Val, we think you’re Poison.”

“Who are you all to say? You didn’t know Poison, and you don’t know me.”

Viper grinned at him before pulling on the red checker-eyed mask he had in his pocket. Oh no, no no no. Val looked over to Venus, who did the same with a blue mask. Those were… Jet Star and the Kobra Kid’s masks. He thought they were dead this wasn’t— this isn’t possible.

The only one left was Vinyl.

“Not you too…” Val pleaded in hopes that Vinyl hadn’t been lying to him.

His wish didn’t come true, because Vinyl put on a white and green mask with an X over the eye. It was Fun Ghoul’s mask. Fuck.

“No!” Val was denying it, he didn’t want to be dragged into this and he was fine just the way he was. “The Fab Four are dead, long, long dead. You’re all fakes!” He pushed the ropes a little further down and accessed his gun. He pointed it back at Viper, before Viper- the Kobra Kid- put his hand on the gun.

“Val,” Kobra spoke to him softly. “Just come with us, okay?”

“Will you untie me?” It was his main priority here, he really didn’t enjoy being trapped like this.

“Fine, we’ll untie you.” Venus- Jet Star- agreed and pulled Kobra over to get Val out of the ropes. It took both of them just a little under a minute, and Jet pointed his gun at Val the moment he stood up. “But try anything and—” he cocked the gun, just to make his point.

Val nodded. “Got it.” He rolled his eyes the moment Jet couldn’t see him. “Drama queen.” He said under his breath.

Kobra jumped onto Jet’s shoulders, who obviously was not expecting it since he almost fell over, but soon realized what happened and accepted Kobra onto his shoulders. It seemed like an intricate process, really. “We’re taking you to the diner, Val.”

“And just what do you think that’s gonna do?” Val asked, veering on his path to be as close to Vinyl as possible.

Kobra shrugged. “You’ll see.”

“Whatever.” Val muttered. He grabbed onto Vinyl’s hand and gripped it tight. He knew Vinyl was supposed to be Fun Ghoul, he knew but he wasn’t letting go of the last thing he might have left.

Vinyl looked over at him with a look that asked if he was okay, and Val shook his head. He didn’t like this, and he didn’t want to be doing this.

They walked the very long walk across the desert to the diner in about an hour or so, completely silent. Nothing about the place seemed special to Val, it just looked like another desert bunker that any crew of Killjoys could be living in. Kobra and Jet led him inside, and near immediately Kobra handed him a black leather jacket.

“What the fuck am I doing with this?” He asked them. This didn’t seem like something that would have any significant value to him or anyone at all, it just looked like a jacket. 

“Put it on.” Jet urged him. “I think you’ll like it.”

Val looked at it skeptically, but still put the jacket on. He checked out all the details and… it said Dead Pegasus. This was his jacket, he recognized it as his, but he never owned a jacket like this in his life. The only person who ever did was… Party Poison. He was staring at the logo with wide eyes, and he knew the rest of the crew saw him recognizing it. “I’m— no. I can’t- no- not possible.” He shook his head.

Vinyl- Ghoul- whoever he was, put his arm around Val- Poison- whoever and pulled him close. “You’ll figure out what’s true, it’s okay.” His voice was still so calming he couldn’t believe how nice it was, but he wasn’t mad at him for never talking before. That was his decision and he chose not to.

“I’m— I’m Party Poison.” He fixed the jacket on his shoulders and said it again with more confidence. “I’m Party fuckin’ Poison.”

**Author's Note:**

> What did you think??  
> Leave a comment or find me on tumblr @akalorettas


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